Our First Trip to the Vernal Pool

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post about our very first trip of the year to the vernal pool.  Our next step was to create a class book about the adventure so we could practice our reading and writing skills.  The children did their very best work and they are beginning to understand that I am always looking for “best effort.” That looks different for each child and part of the trust in our relationship is that I will recognize when they are doing their individual best.

Next, I scanned the images and uploaded them to VoiceThread. This allowed me to make the online book. For the next part, the children needed to use their speaking and listening skills. (I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for students at every level to practice their speaking and listening skills!)

I worked with the kids one at a time, adding in their video comments.  It’s good to point out that VT allows us to comment with video, audio only, typing text, uploading a file, and even phoning in a comment if you don’t have a mic.

You will notice that on a few slides we even added some pen outlining.   When you comment, you will see a color wheel where you can choose your pen color and scribe on the page itself.  You can try your comment over and over before clicking the save button. Now we sit back and let the collaboration begin with the outside world. Please DO leave a comment for us and we can continue the conversation.

As a teacher, I love this project and tool. It does it all.

• speaking
• listening
• writing
• reading
• integration of science and tech
• collaboration with the outside world

Without further ado,  here’s our VoiceThread presentation.